Entries in birth control
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Patricia Wall/The New York TimesIn an absolutely stunning article in the New York Times, the headline says it all: Abortion Qualms on Morning-After Pill May Be Unfounded. Medical authorities from the National Institutes of Health to the Mayo Clinic say that the morning-after pills may work by blocking fertilized eggs from implanting in a woman’s uterus.

That scientific process is sufficient to have conservative politicians and some religious groups pushing legislation all over America that bans the sale of emergency contraception, calling the pills abortive pills. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney calls them “abortive pills’ as do Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.

The New York Times has undertaken an investigation of the science around the morning after pill, writing that there is no evidence that emergency contraceptive pills prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in the womb. Perhaps the morning after pill is confused with RU-486, a medication prescribed for terminating pregnancies, that does destroy an embryo.

After The Times asked about this issue, A.D.A.M., the firm that writes medical entries for the National Institutes of Health Web site, deleted passages suggesting emergency contraceptives could disrupt implantation. The Times, which uses A.D.A.M.’s content on its health Web page, updated its site. The medical editor in chief of the Web site for the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Roger W. Harms, said “we are champing at the bit” to revise the entry if the Food and Drug Administration changes labels or other agencies make official pronouncements.

“These medications are there to prevent or delay ovulation,” said Dr. Petra M. Casey, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Mayo. “They don’t act after fertilization.”

Rather, the pills delay ovulation, the release of eggs from ovaries that occurs before eggs are fertilized, and some pills also thicken cervical mucus so sperm have trouble swimming.

At the end of this exhaustive article on the history of the morning after pill, Jonathan Imbody, vice president of government relations for the Christian Medical Association, wrote on LifeNews.com, that the fact sheets contradict Plan B’s alleged abortion-inducing nature, raising questions about “whether ideological considerations are driving these decisions.”

Declining US Competitiveness

A study of about 10,000 global-residing alumni of the Harvard Business Study shows a troubling forecast for US competitiveness. Only 9 percent of alumni said they would consider moving existing business activities from another country into the US.

The greatest areas where America has fallen seriously behind the rest of the world were 1) Effectiveness of political system; 2) K-12 education system; and 3) Complexity of tax code.

Just in case One Million Moms doesn’t understand clearly that JC Penney is firmly entrenched behind spokeswoman Ellen DeGeneres despite their cries that Ellen is unacceptable for being gay, the company shares its Father’s Day ad.

It reads: “What makes Dad so cool? He’s the swim coach, tent maker, best friend, bike fixer and hug giver — all rolled into one. Or two. Real-life dads, Todd Koch and Cooper Smith with their children Claire and Mason.”

French Roast News

Anne is reading …

Helen Alvaré is a law professor at George Mason University, an advisor to Pope Benedict XVI’s Pontifical Council for the Laity and a former spokesperson for and current advisor to the US Conference of Bishops.

Professor Alvaré is a fellow at the conservative Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, where she focuses on issues of “conscience”. She is one of the “circle of experts” for the National Organization for Marriage’s Ruth Institute, which aims to shape public opinion on college campuses and elsewhere about “marriage as the proper context for sex and childrearing,” writes Sarah Posner, senior editor of Religion Dispatches, for Salon.

The accomplished mother has now positioned herself as the leading female voice against birth control, authoring an open letter to the Obama administration ‘Women Speak for Themselves’.

Vatican Scandal Continues

Pope Benedict’s butler may be under arrest but fresh letters suggest that the scandal is not over.

Three new Vatican documents were sent to ‘La Repubblica’, amidst denials in the Holy See that top clerics are orchestrating multiple informers. APwrites:

“The truth can be found at the top of the hierarchy,” the source said in a letter accompanying the documents, apparently accusing one of Pope Benedict XVI’s personal secretaries, Georg Gaenswein, of allowing secrets to slip out.

The documents reveal deep strife within the Vatican and furor over the Church’s tax problems, child sex scandals and negotiations with hard line traditionalist rebels. A group of cardinals finds Pope Benedict to be weak, continues AP, and they want their man in charge. Besides Mr. Gaenswein, the sources point to Cardinal Bertone as part of the problem.

Interdependence vs Attachment

Psychologist David Schnarch is a pioneer in the movement of redefining intimacy in long-term relationships and reinvesting marriage with passion that often fades. “It’s easy to have hot sex with a stranger,” Schnarch explains to Pam Weintraub, writing for Psychology Today. “But passionate marriage requires that you become an adult.”

Becoming an authentic adult means going against the whole drift of the culture. It specifically means, among other things, soothing your own bad feelings without the help of another, pursuing your own goals, and standing on your own two feet. Most people associate such skills with singlehood. But Schnarch finds that marriage can’t succeed unless we claim our sense of self in the presence of another. The resulting growth turns right around and fuels the marriage, enabling passionate sex. And it pays wide-ranging dividends in domains from friendship to creativity to work.

Schnarch rejects what he sees as our culture’s over-emphasis on attachment, arguing that it reduces marriage to the pursuit of safety, security and compensation for childhood disappointments. Attachment keeps us from growing up, from pursuing essential drives for autonomy and freedom.

Interpendence that is based on mutual maturity, confidence and freedoms to grow is the cement of strong marriages, Schnarch argues. It inspires confidence to meet individual goals and those of others and is based on adult strengths that are flexible and balanced in equilibrium.

DOMA Struck Down

In striking down part of the Defense of Marriage Act last week, Boston’s First Circuit United States Court of Appeals didn’t rule in favor of gay marriage. The ruling marked the first time a federal court ruled against the 1996 law, guaranteeing a trip to the Supreme Court. The three-judge panel includes two Republican appointments. Read on at theNY Times

French Roast News

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Sister Claudia Bronsing takes part in a vigil at St. Colman Church in Cleveland, Ohio, in support of Catholic nuns who were criticized by the Vatican. Michael McElroy for the New York Times The Vatican awaits American nuns who will travel to Rome in an effort to open discussions and their defense against charges that American nuns are “radical feminists” and not committed to upholding core Catholic values.

Concluding a week of meetings in Washington, the 21 board members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents about 80 percent of the nation’s dwindling 57,000 nuns, spoke today in strong terms. Sister Pat Farrell, president of the conference helped draft a response to the Vatican calling recent charges based on “unsubstantiated accusations” and a “flawed process”. The sisters added that the charges have caused scandal, pain and polarization in the Roman Catholic Church.

“Even large sectors of the church itself have legitimate concern and want to continue to talk about the place of women in the church, and rightful equality between men and women,” said Sister Farrell, who is a member of the leadership team of the Sisters of St. Francis, of Dubuque, Iowa. “So if that is called radical feminism, then a lot of men and women in the church, far beyond us, are guilty of that.”

Jurors began deliberating today in Philadelphia in the “landmark trial of Monsignor William Lynn, the highest-ranking cleric charged with endangering children by allegedly helping cover up sexual abuse.”

On trial besides Lynn is Rev. James Brennan, who is charged with the attempted rape of a 14-year-old. Both Brennan and Lynn claim that they are innocent.

Women’s Pay Growth

Forbes reports that a new analysis from PayScale confirms that today’s full-time American female college grads initially earn a median of $31,900 and male college grads earn a median of $40,800. From ages 22 to 30 their salaries growth similarly in percentage terms.

At age 30, women’s earnings growth slows substantially. “By age 39, college-educated women working full-time stop getting raises and see their salaries peak at about $60,000. Their male peers, on the other hand, continue seeing wage increases through age 48, when they earn a median of $95,000 a year.”

A new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation says that three in 10 women (31 percent overall believe that there is currently a “wide-scale effort to limit women’s reproductive health choices and services, such as abortion, family planning, and contraception” in America.

Nevertheless, 42 percent of women polled reported that they took some action in the past six months in reaction to a news or feature item in the media.

This includes attempting to influence a friend or family member’s opinion (23 percent), donating money to a non-profit working on reproductive health issues (15 percent), and contacting an elected official (14 percent).

Six in 10 women voters say the economy is the top election issue and concern.

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